At the 2019 Annual Meeting of Global Times on December 8, Luo Yuan, Executive Vice President and Secretary General of the China Strategic Culture Promotion Association, dismissed the opinion that (China’s) “military stance in the South China Sea is too weak.” He stated that China must have the strategic calmness to safeguard the sovereignty of the country. Luo implied that one shouldn’t look at what’s going on right now; the key is what will happen in the future.

Luo Yuan said that the situation in the South China Sea has changed a lot. China has built airports on the reefs and deployed defensive weapons and equipment. This was unimaginable 20 years ago.

Luo Yuan also analyzed the case of the Southern Combat Region’s spokesperson’s statement on November 30 regarding the U.S. ship’s intruding into of the Xisha territorial waters. Luo Yuan said that the Ministry of National Defense previously voiced “the South China Sea issue.” Now it is the local combat region that issues a statement. What is the function of the combat region? The combat region is established mainly to fight, that is, in the state of preparation for war. Our warships and planes have conducted evidence-collecting, warning, and expelling activities. This was absolutely impossible 20 years ago. Don’t talk about ‘avoiding the Sino-U.S. crisis.’ The best way to ‘avoid a crisis’ is if the U.S. warships don’t go into China’s territorial waters. To the United States, also, don’t talk about ‘freedom of navigation’ all day long. It is also time for China to say to the United States that China also needs to maintain ‘freedom of navigation.’”

Luo Yuan concluded, “So many people have questioned why the U.S. warships went to the Taiwan Strait and went to the South China Sea. Why hasn’t the army taken any measures? We advise everyone that we must have confidence in national defense; we must have strategic calmness; and we are gradually gaining strategic controlling power, accumulating the capability of a ‘must-win in fight.’”